Lung cancer is leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, with a projected 159,480 patients succumbing to the disease in the US in 2014.(1) Lung cancer is typically characterized as being quite aggressive with poor clinical outcomes that stem from the very rapid proliferation rates, high metastatic potential, and general insensitivity to available treatment strategies. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) presents unique challenges to health care providers because of its common late stage of presentation and the poor median overall survival of advanced disease.(2, 3) Patients often become too ill to receive second line treatment as noted by a recent phase III clinical trial where only 37% of the patients randomized to docetaxel at disease progression received treatment.(4)
An objective of this study was reveal circulating biomarkers to identify patients with rapidly progressing NSCLC. This study examined 76 biomarkers that are surrogates for several pathophysiological processes associated with aggressive disease in both frontline (chemo naïve) and second-line and greater (pretreated) patients. A total of 186 patient serum specimens were evaluated. Processes evaluated include angiogenesis, phenotypic transdifferentiation (i.e. EMT, cancer stem cells), cancer cachexia, chronic inflammation, and immune system response.
Identification of patients with rapidly-progressing disease who are insensitive to standard platinum double-based chemotherapy will provide clinical implications.
There is a need in the art for screening methods and kits that identify patients with rapidly progressing disease in patients that are treatment naïve and in patients that have received a treatment.